Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Oolon Colluphid · 03-20-2002, 02:01 PM

My reply to the Daily Telegraph article elicited a couple of responses. One seemed in favour, but wondered whether evolution is as well evinced as I'd said. The other is below. It's 11pm here, and past my bedtime, so here it is: you guys can chew it over if you'd like before I get around to responding. It's mostly pretty predictable, I'm afraid.

Quote:

Dear [Oolon Colluphid]

I don't think the Telegraph is going to publish my response to your letter
which I attach below, but I think your bold claims should not go
unchallenged!

Regards

[A Creationist]

PS should you wish to peruse some of the evidence for a young earth the
following websites provide at least an introduction to the different
evidences, from many branches of science.
<a href="http://www.trueorigin.org" target="_blank">http://www.trueorigin.org</a>
especially <a href="http://www.trueorigin.org/walkergeo01.asp" target="_blank">http://www.trueorigin.org/walkergeo01.asp</a>
<a href="http://www.trueorigin.org/dating.asp" target="_blank">http://www.trueorigin.org/dating.asp</a>
<a href="http://www.trueorigin.org/moonmb.asp" target="_blank">http://www.trueorigin.org/moonmb.asp</a>
<a href="http://www.parentcompany.com/handy_dandy/hderpref.htm" target="_blank">http://www.parentcompany.com/handy_dandy/hderpref.htm</a>
<a href="http://christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c012.html" target="_blank">http://christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c012.html</a>
<a href="http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-radioactive.html" target="_blank">http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-radioactive.html</a>
<a href="http://www.icr.org/" target="_blank">http://www.icr.org/</a> and search appropriately for loads of papers on age.
... to name but a few...

Dear Sir,
[Oolon Colluphid]'s (19th March, 'There is much to fear') is incorrect on a
number of points.
Any notion on the origin of the universe and life is not subject to the
scientific method, which involves observation and repetition. Neither
evolution nor creation has been observed or repeated, thus each is at best
a philosophical conjecture. Use of the word fact in this debate is not
helpful, except when applied to the actual evidence.

To dismiss creation as unscientific is really to dismiss it becauase it is
not naturalistic and materialistic. Many of the greatest scientists found
no conflict with their belief in creation (Newton, Faraday, Babbage,
Pasteur, Linnaeus, Bacon, Boyle, etc)

The statement that 'there is simply no evidence that the universe and the
earth are anything less than billions of years old' is quite simply false.
There are many methods of estimating the age of the universe and the earth,
all of which are based on unverifiable assumptions. Most of these give an
upper limit of thousands or tens of thousands of years (decay of earth's
magnetic field, not enough sodium in the sea, many strata too tightly bent,
too little helium in the atmosphere, etc). Further those dating methods
which are used to 'prove' an old earth are based on uniformitarian
assumptions. I wonder if Mr [Colluphid] is aware that fossils are dated
by rocks, and rocks are dated by fossils. If you assume evolution it is no
suprise that the evidence can be made to fit.

To pretend that creation is 'religious' and unscientific, while evolution
is neutral and scientific, is folly.
Scientists interpret the evidence in the light of their world view. The
fact that Mr [Colluphid]'s world view is different to mine gives him no
right to so patronisingly dismiss creationism when he clearly has little
understanding of it.

Yours sincerely
[A Creationist]

Cheers, Oolon

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]

Darwin's Finch · 03-20-2002, 02:09 PM

Ah, the power of memes.

Dr Rick · 03-20-2002, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Any notion on the origin of the universe and life is not subject to the
scientific method, which involves observation and repetition.

This creationist demonstrates ignorance of the most basic principles of science yet get's it partly right when he says:

Quote:

To dismiss creation as unscientific is really to dismiss it becauase it is not naturalistic and materialistic.

DireStraits · 03-20-2002, 02:48 PM

decay of earth's magnetic field, not enough sodium in the sea, many strata too tightly bent,
too little helium in the atmosphere, etc

DS: Here is a perfect expression of the creationist mindset. Don't bother to learn anything about evolution. Go to a creationist site, pick up the stuff there totally uncritically, swallow it whole, and then reguitate it on the nearset cre/evo discussion board.

Stand back in astonishment when people who do know what they are talking about call it undigested pap. Or crap.

BTW, Oolun. that reference to Ms. Fanny Adams is one I have not heard for a long, long time. Is she still as sweet as I remember her?

Thanks!

Deimos · 03-20-2002, 02:48 PM

By the gods, we're finished now! Evolution is cast into the kingdom of Hades. True Origin has shown us the light

.

The fossils date the rocks and the rocks date the fossils! Nooooooo. Damn those fossil hunters, we told them to peel off the date labels before submitting their finds!

What about those lunar craters? Are they not the result of Lucifers rebellion againt Gawd?

Oolon Colluphid · 03-25-2002, 12:21 AM

I've yet to reply to the first reply -- the geological stuff is outside my range of knowledge, so I've got to look it up (anyone suggest a simple link or two for each point??

) -- but meanwhile, here's another:

Quote:

[Oolon],

Last time I checked, a theory only became fact when proven by several, independently repeatable experiments. Your statement that evolution is a fact is therefore utterly wrong, in the scientific sense. What I will agree to, is that there are strong indications that Darwin was correct when he proposed his theory, but that`s as far as I�ll go, and as far as any man is allowed to go, in view of no actual, scientific proof.

As for religion and the story of creation being antiscience, I'm not so sure. The story in Genesis closely follows events as the evolution theory proposes they happened, apart from the time-frame. The writers of that story were no scientists and certainly were not to know what Darwin, some two thousand years later, was going to write.

These two considerations lead me to believe that evolution was no accident, but a process instigated and guided by the same conscious Being that inspired both the writers of Genesis and Darwin. If I can arrive at that conclusion, so can children in school.

Having the curriculim deny the Supreme Being, and consequently state for a fact that this life, with all its wars, disease and what have you is all we are likely to get, death being the end-all, to me is tantamaunt to child molestation. I've had it done to me in school some thirty years ago, and I still carry the mental scars.

If religion is a demonstrable lie, as you suggest, then where's your proof? I'm curious to know, especially since no news show I've ever seen has ever broadcast those earth-shattering findings.

Show me, PLEASE, the scientific proof that all of religion is a lie.

Yours,

A Nothercreationist

Jack the Bodiless · 03-25-2002, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Most of these give an upper limit of thousands or tens of thousands of years (decay of earth's magnetic field, not enough sodium in the sea, many strata too tightly bent, too little helium in the atmosphere, etc).

...I've yet to reply to the first reply -- the geological stuff is outside my range of knowledge, so I've got to look it up (anyone suggest a simple link or two for each point??)

The magnetic field, sodium, and helium arguments are all dealt with in Dave Matson's <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/matson-vs-hovind.html" target="_blank">How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?</a> (these are also in the II Library, but this TalkOrigins article has them all in a single document: a handy sample of the general incompetence of creationists).

The "tightly bent" claim is that many rocks are tightly folded without any sign of the stress and fracturing you'd expect to see, implying they were soft mud (freshly deposited by the Flood) when bent. At the bottom of <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-meritt/age.html#lewis" target="_blank">this page</a> there's an example of a cretinist being refuted after making a somewhat similar claim about the Lewis overthrust (which "slid without friction", except that it didn't).

Of course, rocks can bend without cracking if they're hot enough. And presumably shattered rock can "heal" by continuation of the same conditions of heat and pressure which formed the rock from loose powder in the first place.

Jack the Bodiless · 03-25-2002, 01:39 AM

In fact, in my inexpert opinion (I'm not a geologist), it seems to me that each of the three classes of rock has a means of getting radically bent. Igneous rock could be slowly extruded and bent into ripples while it's still semi-molten, sedimentary rocks could be ground to powder and then compressed back into rock again, and metamorphic rocks have had their structure altered by intense heat and pressure anyhow (which is quite likely to have folded them).

faded_Glory · 03-25-2002, 04:09 AM

'Tightly bent rocks' show one of the following:

- evidence for deformation when still soft sediment: slumping, loading structures etc.:

- evidence for deformation under brittle conditions: fractures, faults etc.:

- evidence for deformation when ductile because of high pressure and/or temperature: cleavage, schistosity, foliation etc.:

- evidence for deformation when (semi)-liquid: pillow lava's, pahoehoe etc.:

In short, the creationist has once again not done his homework... <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

I got these pictures from several nice websites: <a href="http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~geolweb/slides.html#lecture6" target="_blank">this one,</a>
<a href="http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/296-202VisualsIndex.HTM" target="_blank"> this one</a> and <a href="http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/GalapagosWWW/GalapagosGeology.html" target="_blank"> this one.</a>.

fG

Deimos · 03-25-2002, 04:39 AM

If you want to know what actual researchers are doing with regards to the earth's magnetic field then here's somewhere to start -

<a href="http://es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/geodynamo.html" target="_blank">Geodynamo</a>

If you read Humphries (creationist magnetic field 'expert'

) online papers on the earth's magnetic field you soon realise that his model can best be described as 'cartoon physics'. Nowhere does he attempt to address the magnetohydrodynamic complexities* of the earth's interior, rather he settles for an overly simplistic conducting sphere model coupled with a bit of GODDIDIT to initialise the field <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> .

*Actually, he asserts that 'strong fluid motions' inside the earth caused the field reversals observed in the spreading ocean floor but the details are, as far as I can tell, no-existent.

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03-20-2002, 02:09 PM	#2
Darwin's Finch Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Gardnerville, NV Posts: 666	Ah, the power of memes.

03-20-2002, 02:48 PM	#4
DireStraits Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 81	decay of earth's magnetic field, not enough sodium in the sea, many strata too tightly bent, too little helium in the atmosphere, etc DS: Here is a perfect expression of the creationist mindset. Don't bother to learn anything about evolution. Go to a creationist site, pick up the stuff there totally uncritically, swallow it whole, and then reguitate it on the nearset cre/evo discussion board. Stand back in astonishment when people who do know what they are talking about call it undigested pap. Or crap. BTW, Oolun. that reference to Ms. Fanny Adams is one I have not heard for a long, long time. Is she still as sweet as I remember her? Thanks!

03-20-2002, 02:48 PM	#5
Deimos Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Posts: 97	By the gods, we're finished now! Evolution is cast into the kingdom of Hades. True Origin has shown us the light . The fossils date the rocks and the rocks date the fossils! Nooooooo. Damn those fossil hunters, we told them to peel off the date labels before submitting their finds! What about those lunar craters? Are they not the result of Lucifers rebellion againt Gawd?

03-25-2002, 01:39 AM	#8
Jack the Bodiless Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: UK Posts: 5,815	In fact, in my inexpert opinion (I'm not a geologist), it seems to me that each of the three classes of rock has a means of getting radically bent. Igneous rock could be slowly extruded and bent into ripples while it's still semi-molten, sedimentary rocks could be ground to powder and then compressed back into rock again, and metamorphic rocks have had their structure altered by intense heat and pressure anyhow (which is quite likely to have folded them).

03-25-2002, 04:09 AM	#9
faded_Glory Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Cairo, Egypt Posts: 1,128	'Tightly bent rocks' show one of the following: - evidence for deformation when still soft sediment: slumping, loading structures etc.: - evidence for deformation under brittle conditions: fractures, faults etc.: - evidence for deformation when ductile because of high pressure and/or temperature: cleavage, schistosity, foliation etc.: - evidence for deformation when (semi)-liquid: pillow lava's, pahoehoe etc.: In short, the creationist has once again not done his homework... <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> I got these pictures from several nice websites: <a href="http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~geolweb/slides.html#lecture6" target="_blank">this one,</a> <a href="http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/296-202VisualsIndex.HTM" target="_blank"> this one</a> and <a href="http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/GalapagosWWW/GalapagosGeology.html" target="_blank"> this one.</a>. fG

03-25-2002, 04:39 AM	#10
Deimos Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Posts: 97	If you want to know what actual researchers are doing with regards to the earth's magnetic field then here's somewhere to start - <a href="http://es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/geodynamo.html" target="_blank">Geodynamo</a> If you read Humphries (creationist magnetic field 'expert' ) online papers on the earth's magnetic field you soon realise that his model can best be described as 'cartoon physics'. Nowhere does he attempt to address the magnetohydrodynamic complexities* of the earth's interior, rather he settles for an overly simplistic conducting sphere model coupled with a bit of GODDIDIT to initialise the field <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> . *Actually, he asserts that 'strong fluid motions' inside the earth caused the field reversals observed in the spreading ocean floor but the details are, as far as I can tell, no-existent.

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